While reuniting with his companions, Altaïr took the opportunity to ask around about the situation.
Two groups of people were especially sensitive to changes in the environment and anything unusual in their surroundings.
The first was itinerant merchants, who traveled between towns and villages to trade. The second was Hunters, who spent their days roaming hunting grounds, exploring, gathering, and hunting.
Most of the Hunters working amid the ruins were locals. Their home had been devastated, and many had lost friends or family, so their foul moods were understandable.
Hunters tended to be quick-tempered, and under the combined strain, many now had bloodshot eyes and hair-trigger tempers.
Anyone brazen enough to walk up at that moment and say, "Hey, you! Stop what you're doing. I've got a question for you!" risked being struck in a fit of misplaced anger, even if the speaker was a High Rank Hunter dispatched by the Guild.
Fortunately, Altaïr was a Hunter himself and knew how to approach his grieving peers without provoking a confrontation.
He kept his distance and sent Isis, Nymera, and Morgan to do the asking instead.
Consider the choice. On one side stood an unfamiliar, dark-skinned young man. On the other were a warmhearted, tremendously strong young woman who had spent the past few days tirelessly rescuing people from the ruins, a fit young woman with a refined, literary air, and an aloof, breathtakingly beautiful youth who was easy to mistake for a girl.
Which side were those local Hunters, already primed to explode, more likely to tolerate?
As expected, the three simply asked a few questions and returned with a wealth of information.
Leaving aside how reliable that information was, Altaïr gathered from the local Hunters' accounts that many firmly believed the earthquake and tsunami had not been ordinary natural disasters. They blamed the calamity on the activity of some powerful creature.
Incidents like this apparently occurred every few years in the South Sea region, but this year's had been particularly severe, inflicting serious damage even on a favorably situated port city like Port Tanzia.
Altaïr intended to confirm that claim with the Guild Master and the local scholars.
His intuition told him the situation could not be so simple. If a creature caused earthquakes every few years, how could the Guild possibly have failed to investigate it?
The Guild had to know something about the powerful creature the local Hunters blamed. Since the Guild's higher-ups had still sent him to investigate the earthquake's source, that creature and the true cause were probably not one and the same.
As Altaïr reviewed the local Hunters' accounts in his notes, a headache began to build.
A massive red herring...
—--
Unable to find a useful lead amid his jumbled thoughts, Altaïr returned to the Guild Hall with his companions.
After entrusting the sailor-uniformed guild receptionists with organizing the records and filtering the information, Altaïr tried to book a Hunter Cabin so he could settle in.
The receptionist at the counter apologetically informed him that no cabins were available.
Nearly a third of Port Tanzia's buildings had been damaged by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Many residents had lost their homes and been forced to seek temporary shelter in inns and hotels, while most of the Guild Hall's Hunter Cabins were housing refugees as well.
Even as a High Rank Hunter, Altaïr could hardly expect the Guild to evict refugees just to free a cabin for him.
Altaïr looked at Isis. "Do you have any room on your end?"
Isis scratched the back of her neck. "I'm sharing a double room with Nymera."
Nymera gave Altaïr an awkward but polite smile. She would have given him her bed, but she could not exactly sleep on the street either.
Fortunately, Morgan spoke up. "I think there's room for one more person in mine."
Altaïr had already been seriously considering pitching a tent, so he breathed a sigh of relief. "All right, then. We'll share."
At once, everyone near the counter turned to stare at them in shock. The guild receptionist froze for a moment, then glared at Altaïr as though he were a cockroach.
"..." Altaïr sighed. For the sake of his reputation, he was about to explain.
Morgan beat him to it.
He stared at the guild receptionist and said without expression, "I'm a man. It says so in my Hunter's Notes."
"What?! You are?!" The guild receptionist's shock gave way to mortification.
Regulations required the staff to verify the personal details on every Hunter's identification carefully. The problem was, who ever bothered to check the gender field?
A young Hunter nearby, who had been stealing glances at Morgan the entire time, swayed on his feet and grabbed the counter. His face was a portrait of shattered dreams and heartbreak.
Morgan pretended not to notice. This was hardly the first or even the second time it had happened.
Altaïr fixed the guild receptionist with a reproachful stare. Her face burning, she hurriedly completed the room registration, then repeatedly assured him that she would sort through the archives and identify any useful intelligence as quickly as possible. Only then did the matter come to an end.
—--
After settling in, Altaïr did not retire for the night. He first went to confirm several points with the Guild Master, then gathered his companions together.
"This incident might be connected to my previous quest." Altaïr gave his companions a brief account of the quest in which he had escorted the Diva to perform at the Tower.
And, of course, there was the prophecy delivered by the girl in ancient attire: The dragon that supports the earth has awakened. Mountains will crumble, the ground will shake, and calamity draws near.
His three companions each reacted differently.
Morgan murmured the words "the dragon that supports the earth" under his breath, apparently pondering what kind of creature it might be.
Isis's attention bounced back and forth between "calamity draws near" and "the Diva's autograph." Only after Altaïr told her that he had already obtained the Diva's autograph for her and hung it on her bedroom door could she finally focus on the matter at hand again.
Nymera's concern was a little unusual. She said she wanted another proper chance to hear Lambert sing...
"All right, focus, everyone." Altaïr clapped his hands to draw his three companions' attention back. "When we questioned the local Hunters earlier, you noticed the same thing.
"They also believe this earthquake was not a natural disaster, but was caused by some kind of creature."
Isis and the other two exchanged glances, then nodded in unison.
"I checked that with the Guild Master just now. According to him, the powerful creature the local Hunters believe can cause earthquakes is probably a Ceadeus."
"The one that chased down Nakarkos and ultimately killed it?"
"Yes. That one was a subspecies, but it was broadly the same kind of creature." Altaïr nodded and continued, "A Ceadeus can ram into rocky shelves and cause earthquakes.
"Those tremors have a very limited range, however, and occur mainly around outlying islands, so they could not have affected Port Tanzia.
"A Ceadeus is unlikely to have caused an earthquake and tsunami on the scale we just experienced."
Morgan nodded. "Agreed. A Ceadeus is enormous, but it should not be large enough to shake a continental shelf."
"So whatever caused it would have to be even larger than a Ceadeus? Much larger?" Isis pressed.
"If the earthquake truly was caused by some kind of creature, then... yes." Altaïr nodded, then continued, "But speaking of earthquakes, or rather, intense geological activity in general, we've encountered several related incidents before. Remember?"
"Of course. The Pariapuria sightings on Tidal Island and the abnormal Shen Gaoren migration were both linked to intense geological shifts." Morgan frowned. "Are you suggesting those events are connected?"
Isis, whose memory was sharp, quickly added, "And the Estrellian incident too!"
"There's a real possibility," Altaïr said without claiming certainty.
He suddenly understood a little better why scholars insisted on such rigor. When conclusions might influence decisions about events of this magnitude, caution was unavoidable.
"For now, I think we should center the investigation on 'intense geological activity.' We'll sift through reports, gather intelligence, identify suspicious locations, and then investigate them one by one.
"Any suggestions?"
Nymera spoke up. "By that reasoning, the earthquakes may not be limited to the South Sea region. Could we use the Merchant Guild's network to gather information from across the entire continent?"
"That should be possible. Francesca should be willing to help, and the Guild can assist with the coordination." Altaïr nodded.
Morgan added, "If we plot the time and location of every intense geological shift, perhaps they'll trace out some kind of route?"
"That's exactly what I had in mind." A trace of concern crossed Altaïr's face. "The difficult part is distinguishing the geological shifts caused by 'that thing' from those with other causes.
"The workload will be enormous, and misclassifying just one or two sites could throw the entire route off and lead us badly astray."
"Exactly..."
"I have an idea!" Isis suddenly raised her hand.
"bacon has an excellent nose! She can make that distinction for us!"
"?!"
Altaïr and Nymera stared at her, baffled. Morgan, meanwhile, looked utterly lost.
"bacon... what's that? Some kind of ingredient?"
* * *
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